Kentucky rifle started 5/15 stopped 3 months to work on my model A

[32chevy vett]

I added one I thought six ball would like some real history. Just finished this kentucky rifle two weeks ago.Now back to the model A.

[sammons]

Very nice....beautiful wood!  Great job

I bet there is a story behind getting that paper work???

[sixball]

"I remember cabin logs with the bark still rough and a mother who laughed at trifles, and tall lank strangers dark as snuff with their long straight squirrel rifles" That's a beauty! There is no better training for a "rifleman" than to learn to shoot a flintlock. If you can manage hold and follow through with all of that going on in your face you can shoot anything. Pretty wood! Is that natural Tiger Stripe or did you that? Years ago I put a Cherry Creek Hawkin kit together that a friend won. It had the plainest hunk of maple I had ever seen until I began to stain it. It was beautiful from butt to forend with lots if figure.It just took a bit of color to bring it out.

[32chevy vett]

The wood is curly maple the more curly the more cost.That wood cost me more then the last complete gun I done a few years back.
The real cool part about the paper work signed by George washington. They also had Eleazer Blake's gun this powder horn and a photo of him before he died in his late nineties.

[themoose]

Looks great...Is that an oil finish?

[TFoch]

Don nice work!  Beautiful wood.

[32chevy vett]

Yes that is hand rubbed oil finish. About ten coats put one coat on rub it hard till your hand gets hot then put a coat let it set over night. And repeat until you have the finish you want.

[sixball]

For sure a full stock with that much grain from  end to end would not be cheap. I'd be afraid to whittle on it.  I only asked because it almost looked too good to be true and I thought you might know a curly maple trick.That is a fine piece. The paper work is cool too. Did you shoot it?

[32chevy vett]

No I did not shot it yet. But are getting different size balls and patches To work up the right load for the green mountain barrel.What works in one barrel may not work as well in another. Muzzle loaders can be very finicky.

[sixball]

Finicky at the least, but that is one reason we love them. I have a full stock 36 cal southern mountain rifle made by Nelson Dixon from Dixon Alabama before the War of Northern Aggression. He later made made arms for the Confederacy. It was a 32 when I got it in about 1965. I've won a few matches with it and it's Hell on squirrels and bunnies. It's not as pretty as yours though not as plain as some. Pretty plain American Walnut with brass fixtures and a grease notch in the stock for lubing patches. I'd love to know how it got from Alabama to California where I bought it from a guy that claimed it had been in his family for a long time but didn't know it's history.